


Interlude: 2005

by Not_You



Series: A Nest Of Snakes [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bugs & Insects, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Psychic Abilities, Short Chapters, Surgery, mantis just needs his cleft lip and a couple other things fixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-06 20:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15893994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: What it was like for Mantis when he first came to America.





	1. Prologue

They don’t go to Russia intending to take anyone home with them. They have been considering adoption, but most of what they’re doing here is helping with physical and emotional infrastructure. New pipes for the orphanage, education and other help for the locals who are helping other locals kick heroin, learn marketable skills, and in some cases get their children back. 

A truly horrifying proportion of these kids are only social orphans, and Mary steels herself as best she can when she has to walk through the building with James. He’ll be no help, an even softer touch than she is, and as they go to talk to the foreman of the construction job and the director of the entire institution, they do their best to ignore the children. 

They’re all such precious babies, it’s impossible to imagine not wanting them. Then again, Mary’s inability to conceive has caused her a lot of pain. Not an insurmountable amount, after all, so many children need parents. But now is not the time, and she keeps telling herself that as she does what she can to help the staff, learning their routines to see which areas need the most improvement. These are good people, there just aren’t enough of them and a huge proportion of these children have special needs beyond the ordinary vast demands of any growing child.

It’s a long day, and at the end of it they’re just trying to walk out, exhausted and ready to collapse. Mary has a notebook full of schedule changes that might actually net some of these kids enough attention, and James is shuffling along beside her muttering to himself about hydraulic engineering when he glances off to one side and stops, in the middle of this giant common room full of kids. They’re a noisy group, as might be expected, but this one is very quiet, sitting on the back of an ancient armchair in one corner of the room, rocking slightly, skinny little hands keeping it in place. 

The child looks like a small five, and the whole question of boy or girl is obfuscated by the blanket over its head. There’s a solid ring of empty space around it, none of the children sprawled on that part of the carpet, none running or playing within that exclusion zone. Mary has seldom seen anyone look more alone in a crowd, and of course James peels off and goes right over. Mary follows, wondering if any reminder not to break his own heart will help.

The child stops rocking as they get closer, and they can feel the other children watching them. The room hasn’t gone quiet, but the noise is softer now. James speaks better Russian than Mary, but she understands his soft greeting. The child is very tense, but seems more fearful than likely to be violent. James talks to it a little longer, and after some coaxing, the blanket slides back at last. 

The immediate first impression is of a mop of flaming red hair hanging in front of bright blue eyes, and then of delicate freckles on a face where someone has only done the bare minimum to repair a catastrophic cleft lip and something less obvious in the nose and ears. That’s a shame, of course, but what’s more important is that the child is smiling at them. Mary smiles back. He’s so small, and he keeps the blanket tightly over his shoulders and the back of his head, like a shawl. Mary gets this terrible, fragile, molten feeling in her chest and thinks, _Oh hell._

Mary can understand it when James asks for the boy’s name, and he lisps, “Nikita.” For all his fear when they first approached, there’s something very self-possessed about him. He’s so precious and so lonely that they’re doomed. They are going to have to make a concerted effort to adopt this kid, and she sends up a silent prayer that if it goes through, they can be everything he needs them to be. Later, it feels like a sign when one of the nurses tells them that she has never seen Nikita smile before.


	2. Chapter 2

Nikita doesn’t like free time. He would rather put puzzles together and learn to try to sing stupid songs with his stupid drooly mouth than sit here with all the other stupid kids thinking. No one will play with him and he doesn’t even care. He knows there are new grownups here, but that doesn’t mean much. New grownups are never interested in him, and when they see him they’re always so shocked and it’s stupid. And a lot of them are disgusted like his father and he doesn’t want to remember that, ever, the way his hate had just been everything, slow and burning and the pain never stopped. It’s scary when the new grownups come over to him, but he knows that if he screams and runs away he’ll be in trouble.

Close like this, even with the blanket he can tell that it’s a man and a woman. There’s a feeling between them like they care about each other, and then the man is saying, “Good afternoon, little one.” Nikita does not say anything back. “Are you all right?” Nikita doesn’t answer, and the man says, “I want you be all right.” He doesn’t sound Russian, but he’s not hard to understand. What’s strange is that there’s no anger with Nikita for being difficult, not even the little bit that the staff always feels, even the patient ones. “Why blanket?” the man asks, and Nikita pulls it back enough to peek out, because no one has ever asked that question so calmly. He wonders if the man knows enough Russian to understand an honest answer, or if he would believe it if he did.

They’re plain people, with brown hair and placid blue-grey eyes. With his face exposed, Nikita can suddenly feel a strange, happy warmth from both of them that fills him up like a hot drink and makes him smile. They smile back, and it’s funny to see that, a smile in response to Nikita, not one that’s already there because someone is determined to be nice. There’s something a tiny bit sad from the woman, but it’s mostly swamped in this strange new thing.

There are a lot of strange new things after that. The Hallers visit him a lot, always carrying that soft warmth, and when they finally have to go away, they give him a plush rabbit that smells like lavender. He’s still sad and angry when they go away, but hugging the rabbit makes him feel better. Nikita barely knows what it is to be happy, so within days the Hallers seem like the best dream he has ever had, except for the rabbit. When Mischa tries to take it, Nikita shoves him into the wall without using his hands, so hard that Nikita is halfway back across the giant playroom before the big baby even has enough breath to cry.

It’s strange for Nikita to even really think about being unhappy, and it’s even stranger to be regularly called into the office to use the computer to talk to the Hallers. It’s weird and flat because he can’t feel them, they’re in America, but it’s good to see them, and to hear their funny, halting Russian again. There are a whole lot of rules about adoptions, and they have to make sure that everything is right, but every time they tell Nikita that they have not forgotten him, and once they bring the camera into what they say will be his room. A room of his own is hard for Nikita to even imagine, but it must be so quiet. He also likes the ceiling, blue with a moon and stars. They seem happy when he says so.

Nikita keeps waiting for something to happen. He wonders if the Hallers know about him burning the house down. He had to do it, but grownups never understand. He would never burn down their house. Either nobody tells them or they forgive him, because they come back, and when they leave again, they take Nikita with them.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s so loud in the streets that Nikita shakes and screams, but with the Hallers crouched beside him and being as calm as they can, things start to get a little better. They let him put his coat on his head on top of the hood of his sweatshirt, and that helps a lot. There’s a car then, which is a little better, the metal around them having some of the same cushioning effect as a building. The driver doesn’t have anything really terrible in his mind, and soon they’re at the airport. 

It’s strange, to be around so many different minds. The pressure hurts, but people aren’t thinking about him and they’re thinking in other languages and it could be a lot worse. They make him take off his blanket at the security checkpoint, so they can be sure that he is himself, but then they let him put it back on. He does not scream or cry, because he’s old enough now to be learning some self-control.

The plane itself is at least a smaller crowd, and most of the people settle into quiet thoughts and boredom and the strange electrometallic almost-clicking of playing games. Nikita likes it when people get like that, and other than the pressure changes making his ears hurt, it’s not so bad. He keeps his head covered and sits between the Hallers, who are still being calm at him. It’s nice.

Nikita does not eat like other children, and he doesn’t care. He’s nothing like other children, what does anyone expect? Everything is too much, each bite feeling massive in his mouth, choking him, disgusting and cloying and more than enough to make him sick. It doesn’t help that his stupid mouth is so messed up that even when he wants something to eat it’s hard to not drool it everywhere. He can eat porridge with a spoon meant for feeding babies, and once a week at the orphanage they would force him to take a huge multivitamin. Pills aren’t so bad, but nobody ever breaks that one smaller, and it leaves his throat raw sometimes.

At least he doesn’t have to deal with anything too new on the plane. Mr. Haller has a bag of the same porridge they boil at the orphanage, and the stewardess is wiling to microwave it as much as it takes. She also stirs as many lumps as possible out of it. He appreciates her efforts, but it’s still exhausting and unpleasant to eat the still-lumpy and microwave-tasting porridge. At least when it’s over Nikita can curl up in his seat and go to sleep for a while.

By the time they reach their destination, Nikita is very tired of flying. Being in a car isn’t much improvement, and at the end of the drive is a place he has never been and he almost wants to be back at the orphanage for a moment. The feeling radiating from the Hallers keeps him from really wanting it. They’re so tired and they’re worried, but they’re also happy to be home, and to have Nikita here.

Everything is worth it when they get to the house. Nikita’s room is exactly like they showed him, and it is even quieter than he hoped it would be. They’re not even mad when he closes the door and doesn’t talk, they just move around the house, making sure everything is as they left it. It’s a soothing feeling to be around, and soon Nikita is asleep, curled up tightly around his rabbit.

For Nikita’s first breakfast in America, they give him a bowl of the same kind of porridge and the same size of spoon. He’s still having a hard time catching thoughts where the words are in English, but Mrs. Haller wants him to have something that he knows, when everything else is so new. She wants that for itself, for him. She wants him to feel safe, instead of just not wanting him to be angry. Nikita has a hard time parsing that, but he does feel the distinction. It makes it easier to take tiny bites of porridge. People aren’t happy around Nikita very much, and the warmth radiating from Mrs. Haller is weird but compelling. He’s so busy trying to figure it out that he finishes the whole bowl, and that just makes her happier. Nikita never makes anyone happy. It’s a weird feeling, but also a really nice one.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything is different here, except for a few things that the Hallers carefully keep the same. Nikita doesn’t really care because the orphanage was never home, but it’s a nice gesture. They don’t even try to touch him after he dodges the first few times. It’s not bad, it’s just too much, like the sweetness of a banana the first time he tries it.

Every day they work on Nikita’s English, and he picks it up quickly. There’s also a lady who comes and speaks Russian with him, because the Hallers don’t want him to forget. Nikita doesn’t really care if he does forget at first, but then he realizes how many people in America only speak English. No sense in wasting a whole other language, even if is the one where nobody loved him. He’s getting used to the feeling coming off of the Hallers. He supposes they should be Mama and Papa now. He’s working on it. There’s a man they take him to see who helps him figure out words for feelings in English. They’re useful things to know, because it lets Nikita explain what’s wrong when they take him somewhere with too many people, why he sometimes just starts screaming in the grocery store, that he wasn’t scared of the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but of the pressure of all those minds watching the fireworks.

The Hallers already know that he likes to have his face covered. He doesn’t care that he’s ugly, but he doesn’t like it when people stare. What he has to explain is that all the minds press on his in a crowd, that it hurts. He can tell that they really don’t understand, but he gets angry anyway. He knocks a few things over without using his hands, and squalls like a baby, in a way he thought he had outgrown. When he’s tired from all of that, Mrs. Haller holds out her arms and Nikita stumbles into them. She’s thinking, _I love you, Nikita_ again and again, very carefully, and not very loud at all. He hugs her tightly, which is still too much and he’ll have to let go soon, but he wants her to know that he knows that she means it.

They take Nikita to some other doctor, who asks him stupid questions and gets more and more scared the more of them Nikita gets right. Nikita doesn’t know all the words he’s thinking, but they’re not good words and so Nikita pushes his stupid coffee over. It’s not hot enough to hurt him, and Nikita kind of wishes it was.

Once the doctor has cleaned up a bit, he calls Mrs. Haller in and tells her that Nikita is a class five esper and that he should be isolated and carefully watched. Nikita does not like being isolated and carefully watched. He grabs Mrs. Haller’s hand and hopes she won’t let go. She does not let go. She thanks the doctor for his professional opinion and then leads Nikita down to the parking lot. He’s still thinking about being isolated and carefully watched, and he feels sick. He doesn’t even have time to warn Mrs. Haller before he’s puking down the front of his shirt and making the day even worse.

“Okay,” Mrs. Haller says, “I have to let go of you, but just to clean up.”

Nikita nods. He didn’t realize he had told her anything, but that happens sometimes. He can feel that she’s sad and a little angry, and that leaves him standing there in his filthy shirt and blubbering. Mrs. Haller gets wet wipes out of the car and pulls Nikita’s shirt off. He doesn’t like standing here half-naked in a parking lot, but she cleans him up and then gives him his hooded sweatshirt. With the hood up and the drawstrings pulled tighter, Nikita feels a little better, even if he still feels bad for making trouble for one of the only two people to ever care about anything but how much trouble he is.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Mrs. Haller says, and buckles Nikita into the back seat. She stands there with the door open for a long moment, holding both of his hands. Skin to skin contact always makes people easier to hear, but this is all right. Mrs. Haller loves him, and she isn’t mad about the mess. “I’m angry with the doctor,” she tells him. “I’m trying not to be, but he scared you.” Nikita nods. “We’re not going to make you go away. You’ll have to see more doctors, but you’re our son and you’re staying with us.”


	5. Chapter 5

Nikita does have to see more doctors, and some of them are about his face. They’re nice, even when they find out that he’s a class five esper. A few of them are a little nervous, worried Nikita will find out too much about them, but he’s getting better and better at not doing that. He still doesn’t care that he’s ugly, but if he can breathe better when he’s asleep, eat more easily, and head off some of the most obnoxious mental noise he gets in public, he’ll take surgery. It’s scary, but at least the nurses aren’t lying to him when they say that these are normal procedures and that kids have them all the time. They know it will be tough, Nikita is having a lot of work done, but apparently it’s not very tricky work, and that makes him feel better.

Nikita spends his sixth birthday in the hospital, but that’s not so bad. It’s cold and rainy outside anyway, and the nurses are used to kids with weird faces. They give him a balloon and some plastic bugs, which is also a definite plus. Nikita likes bugs. They’re simple, just a constant busy buzz of _hungry-sunlight-movement-fly!_ that’s very restful after dealing with humans and all their words and the weird stuff adults seem to always want to do with each other. He makes the plastic bugs chase each other in circles and sips at the chocolate milk he’s having instead of a cupcake. Cake chews all weird, but he likes chocolate.

It takes forever for Nikita to heal up after all the surgeries it takes to fix his stupid mouth and his weird ears and the things that are wrong in his nose, but it’s true, once everything is done it’s a lot easier to keep food in his mouth, and the Hallers say he doesn’t snore anymore. He’s not really sure what to make of the face in the mirror when he looks. He has never spent a lot of time studying his own face, but now he watches as the scars fade. Not all the way, but he’s a lot less ugly now.

It’s spring now, and Mr. Haller has to buy a lot of things for the garden. He used to wonder how Nikita was so good and quiet at the supply store, but these days he just smiles down at him, knowing that Nikita likes how quiet it is, hardly ever more than half a dozen other people at a time, and mostly steady old ones, thinking about how best to water their gardens or feed their chickens.

Nikita also likes the store for itself, for the packets of seeds and rolls of chicken wire and bags of fertilizer. It’s cool and quiet and always soothes him. Today there’s something interesting by the register, and Nikita goes to investigate it while Mr. Haller’s thoughts are full of pipes for water. It’s not exactly bug minds, it’s more like the suggestion of bug minds. A lot of them all together, a barely-audible hum. He’s still looking at the strange grey-white things through the cellophane windows in their paper bags, when Mr. Haller comes up beside him.

“Those are mantis eggs,” Mr. Haller says, and Nikita stares in awe. That whisper-buzz is baby mantises! He has only seen them in pictures, and wonders now if they could live in the garden. He looks up at Mr. Haller, who smiles down at him.

“People do buy them for their gardens, to eat pests,” he says. “Would you like us to get some?”

Nikita nods, and Mr. Haller buys a bag along with everything else. Nikita carries it out in both hands, very careful, so tuned into the whisper-buzz that he doesn’t even look out the window on the way home. It’s not bug minds yet, but it will be bug minds, and bug minds are soothing. 

At the orphanage Nikita used to listen to the insects in the walls, their thoughts of _hungry-hungry-move-cold-hot-dark-hungry-hungry_ Insects are always seeking something, but unlike humans, they know what they want. Even their weird mating urges are simple, direct, none of the complicated, creepy stuff that comes off the grownups. Mrs. and Mr. Haller do a fair amount of that tangled and fleshy weirdness, but there’s nothing mean about it, nothing slimy. They love each other, and that feeling might never stop being weird, but it’s a good weird.


	6. Chapter 6

Nikita can feel that the Hallers are concerned by how much he likes watching the egg case, but it’s that soft kind, the kind that’s really about him, like each time they coax him to eat again, offering a dozen little meals a day. Nikita can eat more things these days, but too much food of any kind all piled up in front of him is still disgusting. And textures present a problem, but it’s easier now that they have the good blender. Engrossed as Nikita is by the mantis egg case, he’s always willing to step away to contemplate the blender instead.

The thing about the blender is that Nikita can feel it working. His telekinesis is like fingers that nothing can hurt, so he can run it all over the whirring blades, and feel every part of the mechanism. He learns how to turn it on from across the house, but doesn’t do it very often because it makes the Hallers nervous. They’re still not afraid of him, but they’re afraid of someone getting hurt, or the blender breaking, and Nikita feels no need to aggravate them. Instead he just watches and feels the machinery running, all the different textures and flavors breaking down into the gestalt of a smoothie, shake, or soup.

Nikita needs to eat a lot more than he wants to, so the Hallers keep careful track of what he likes best. They never try to trick him, and not just because a class five esper is hard to lie to. They wouldn’t want to be lied to, and so they’re honest with Nikita. It feels weird on the edges of his mind, but weird doesn’t mean bad.

Nikita is sipping a strawberry-banana smoothie when the mantises begin to hatch. One by one, uneven like the impact of raindrops, and he runs to the jar, keeping the drink from spilling without thinking about it. The baby mantises are white, and Nikita stares and stares at their tiny, perfect bodies, their tiny, perfect little not-really-thoughts humming in his mind _brightbrightbright—move—hungry--hungry--move_

Mrs. Haller lets Nikita be the one to carry the jar into the garden, and he watches all the little mantises leap free, finding their way into green. After that, Nikita spends more time in the garden, soaking up the warmth of the sun and the brutal simplicity of insects.

Now that they realize how much Nikita likes bugs, the Hallers make sure to give Nikita as much exposure to them as he wants. They help him capture and identify bugs in the garden, and Mrs. Haller finds a natural history museum with an insectarium. She and Mr. Haller take Nikita there a few afternoons out of every week, even though they have so many church things to do. Nikita loves everything about it, and he loves Mrs. Haller for holding his hand while he looks at the spiders, even though she’s afraid of them.

Even though it’s late in the year and the garden doesn’t _really_ need them, Mr. Haller buys a big tub of earthworms. Even if they’re extra, they won’t hurt anything, and Nikita spends the morning with them, soothed by their dormant state when they come out of the fridge, and then the slow, slow warming. He sits out by the compost pile, enjoying the drowsy feeling of the worms and the sharp, _hungry—hungry—aphid!--crunch_ thoughts of the mantises. Nikita already has sunscreen on and Mr. Haller brings him a hat and some lemonade when the sun gets hot. He’s glad, but feels all syrupy from the worms and can’t really say so. He’s pretty sure he knows.

Mrs. Haller comes out when it’s almost time for lunch, and the worms are thinking _hungry—too bright too bright—HUNGRY_ and then it’s time to dump them onto the compost pile, where they bury themselves in the whole delicious world. It’s easy for Nikita to eat lunch today, and he makes up for the two little meals he missed, watching over the worms.

Since Mrs. Haller has to write her next sermon, Nikita spends the afternoon helping Mr. Haller in the garden, so they won’t disturb her. Nikita weeds everything and thins the carrots, crunching up the tiny, sweet roots, bathed in the green light of the sun through the squash leaves.

In the evening, after they’ve scrubbed all the dirt off and had dinner, Nikita snuggles in against Mr. Haller’s side on the porch swing, the two of them watching the sunset while Mrs. Haller knits in the rocking chair beside them. It’s soothing, having their calm thoughts and warm emotions wrapped around his awareness, along with the repetitive pattern of Mrs. Haller’s stitches.

When Mr. Haller calls Nikita a cuddlebug, Nikita shakes his head, snuggled in against Mr. Haller’s side on the porch swing. “Mantis,” he says, and Mr. Haller chuckles, his amusement echoed in Mrs. Haller’s mind.

“Cuddle Mantis, then,” Mr. Haller says, and Mantis supposes that will do for now.


End file.
